The primary goal of this site is to provide mature, meaningful discussion about the Vancouver Canucks. However, we all need a break some time so this forum is basically for anything off-topic, off the wall, or to just get something off your chest! This forum is named after poster Creeper, who passed away in July of 2011 and was a long time member of the Canucks message board community.

Puck wrote:Wow. Some of you guys are so far to the right, you can't even see the middle.

Corn, you live in the Excited States, what's your take?

Am not a rightie faciist...more like a middling leftie...there are folks down here passing laws to restrict voting, a valid drivers license won't be valid anymore along with your voter registration card. that's why i've got to fight fire with fire...even though my Dad was a POW in Germany in WWII and HATED having guns around the home...i learned at a young age to properly handle a weapon, to go hunting....just in case. Proud member of the Silent Minority...gun totting libs..Namaste,yourgonnahaftaprythisgunfrommycolddeadhandsWF

One might argue that if there were more gunplay in the streets you fuckers might toe the line a little better.

Wot?

Yeah, I know; there are lies, damned lies and statistics. None of these figures are really fully comparable. Since guns are readily available in the US and not so in the UK, a higher percentage of homicides are performed with guns in the US, and in the UK they will probably use eg a cricket bat or hurling stick instead.

Even the murder numbers are not reliable, because different countries have different tresholds for what is murder and what is manslaughter. Unfortunately it's much easier to find figures re murder than re total homicides, which would probably be more objective.

Assault and rape numbers are not comparable between nations, because in both cases the statistics depend more on how likely people are to report the crime then the prevalence of the crime. Even in Sweden they assume that nearly as many rapes go unreported as are reported, and in many countries few women dare report it as all, as there is more shame in having people find out about it. In Muslim countries you hardly have any reported rapes. And there's also a matter of definition. Remember the two Swedish women accusing Julian Assange of rape? From what I've heard it sounds like they have a case, yet Assange is bewildered. I think our definition of rape is somewhat broader than what Julian's is.

If you look at Sweden's assault numbers, they have sky rocketed, yet when you look at surveys where people are asked about violence, it seems that nothing has changed since the 60's. The difference is that when two people got in a bar fight 50 years ago, they each went home afterwards and slept it off. Today it's common that both of them press charges againt the other.

From personal experience, I saw more fights in one year at a high school in Iowa than I did in 12 years of school in Sweden.

Looking at total homicides per capita instead the figure has been fairly stable since the 18th century, actually fallen somewhat, but that slight drop could actually be caused by better health care...

just wondering aloud (figuratively of course) but; how would one go about finding a statistic on the availability of unregistered guns in a particular society? I ask because, the idea that guns used for foul play are more readily available in one country or another seems rather unprovable. I mean do you send price waterhouse or students and interns into bad neighbourhoods to knock on doors to find arms dealers so they can get numbers to compile?

Perhaps murders or homicides with guns is a bad way to argue against unregistered firearms the first place, since so many are committed with guns with the numbers filed off. Besides, what gun laws are going to prevent people breaking the moral code who are determined to break it in so many other ways? A better way might be to look at accidental gunshot incidents, but then you would be looking at the idiot fringe, hello Dick Cheney... Mind you, we do have bicycle helmet laws for everyone to prevent the brain damaged from posting on hockey forums, so I guess it follows that gun control laws are right in line with seat belt laws, chainlink fences in parks, ridiculous speed limits and other forms of protecting us all from ourselves...

Last edited by ukcanuck on Thu May 24, 2012 8:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

Unfortunately, we still don't have a bike helmet law. Or... we do, but it is only aimed at those under 15, which renders it absolutely useless and counterproductive.

Since you are not required by law to wear a helmet when you have turned 15, but you are when you are 14, no 15-yo (except the occassional Asperger kid and part of the nerd patrol) will ever be seen wearing one. Since the helmet is a clear stigma, showing that you have yet to turn 15, no 14 year old will wear it either, and hardly any 13-year olds.

The way to make the kids wear it would be to issue a law that says you have to be 18 in order to wear a helmet. Then all the kids age 13-19 would.

So, either bicycle helmets should be mandatory for everyone riding a bike, or they should get rid of that law altogether.